October 24,
2003
In this paper I will examine Quine’s theory of cognitive synonymy as it is revealed in his 1951 paper: “Two Dogmas of Empiricism”. I will first explain what analytic statements and cognitive synonymy are. Second I will interpret his proof of interchangeability of cognitively synonymous linguistic expressions and finally I will bring out how he found a contradiction in this theory depending on the language used.
1. Analytic Statements and Cognitive Synonymy
There have been many explanations for analytic statements by many philosophers but none of them satisfied Quine, at least for his purposes. The closest is the Carnap’s definition: A statement is analytic when it comes out true under every exhaustive assignment of truth-values to the atomic or noncompound statements of the language. However this is not complete since it lacks the power to explain how this is going to work for logical synonym pairs which Quine defines as the “second class’ of analytic statements. In such wise one can only accept Carnap’s definition if the second class of analytic statements can be reduced to logical truth by putting synonymous for synonymous where this kind of synonymy is restricted as cognitive synonymy.
2. Interchangeability of Cognitively Synonymous Linguistic Expressions
Quine claims that ‘bachelor’ and ‘unmarried man’ are cognitively synonymous only on the condition that (1)“All and only bachelors are unmarried man” is analytic.
Here we are explaining analyticity conversely with the help of cognitive synonymy. We can do that since interchangeability salva veritate everywhere except within words so cognitive synonymy does not presuppose analyticity.
Now we need to clarify that interchangeability is a sufficient condition for cognitive synonymy. Quine’s explanation is as follows:
Assume ‘necessarily’ is truly applicable to analytic statements. Then
(2) “Necessarily all and only bachelors are bachelors” is evidently true. Moreover if ‘bachelor’ and ‘unmarried man’ are interchangeable salva veritate then (3) “Necessarily all and only bachelors are unmarried man” is true. But if (3) is true then (1) is analytic.
Therefore ‘bachelor’ and ‘unmarried man’ are cognitively synonymous.
3. Objection
Quine claims, first of all, that above argument supposes a language that rich enough to contain the adverb ‘necessarily’ and this adverb is defined in a way so that when applied to an analytic statement it brings in truth. However to admit such an adverb is to suppose we already have a clear definition for analyticity. But this is kind of circular since we have not brought a clear argument for the second class of analytic statements. Particularly for an extensional language [where any two predicates that agree extensionally are interchangeable salva veritate] there is no assurance of cognitive synonymy in terms of interchangeability salva veritate. Hence ‘bachelor’ and ‘ unmarried man’ are interchangeable salva veritate in an extensional language does not yield that they are cognitively synonymous since this claim only indicates that (1) is true. However we needed to get the analyticity as a result not the truth. Therefore interchangeability salva veritate when defined in an extensional language is not a sufficient condition of cognitive synonymy of the second type of analytic statements.